To amend the Reclamation Wastewater and Groundwater Study and Facilities Act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to participate in the Los Angeles County Water Supply Augmentation Demonstration Project, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo and Ranking Member Nick Rahall as well as Water and Power Subcommittee Chairman George Radanovich for recognizing the importance of this bill, H.R. 4545, the Southern California Water Augmentation Study.

I would also like to especially thank my colleague Grace Napolitano, the ranking member of the Water and Power Subcommittee. She has served in that position with distinction and established herself as an advocate for sound water policy in her home State of California and across the Nation. Representative Napolitano has supported this bill, and she has utilized many efforts in shepherding it through the legislative process.

I became interested in this effort because California and other parts of this country need to move forward on two very important issues: First, we must increase our groundwater drinking supplies, and we can do this by improving the safe infiltration of surface water. And, second, we must reduce urban stormwater runoff that can carry trash and contamination to our beaches and oceans.

The water augmentation study was created to address important economic and scientific questions about water quality and water supply. Simply put, this project is about taking the water that we lose and turning it into water that we can use.

This study will assess the potential of urban stormwater infiltration to augment water supplies. This water augmentation study will determine the benefits, costs, and risks of infiltration. It will help us understand what conditions we need to make infiltration work and assess the potential for larger water supply. At the same time, it will show us how to reduce water pollution and create additional environmental and social benefits.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is designed to make southern California more water self-sufficient and less reliant on imported water from our neighbors in the central and northern parts of our State. I am also very pleased that President Bush has included funding for the water augmentation study in his last three budgets, including this year. This is a bipartisan effort in which there is agreement on the merits of the project throughout our government.

Also, the California staff of the Bureau of Reclamation has been very supportive of this project. In fact, they helped create it in the year 2000, because they see it as helping solve a real problem we face in California and, shall I say, other water-challenged States across the country.

Again, I would like to thank Chairman Pombo and Ranking Member Rahall, as well as the great staff on the House Resources Committee, and to Representative Napolitano for her unyielding support of this bill. I urge all my colleagues to join us in supporting H.R. 4545.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4545) to amend the Reclamation Wastewater and Groundwater Study and Facilities Act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to participate in the Los Angeles County Water Supply Augmentation Demonstration Project, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

H.R. 4545 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior, in cooperation with the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council, to participate in the design, planning, and construction of a water recharge demonstration project in Southern California. To meet the needs of future population growth in this arid region, capturing stormwater runoff and recharging groundwater could substantially increase local water supplies.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Likewise, Mr. Speaker, with that note of unanimity, being from a water-challenged State the gentlewoman from California spoke of earlier, I would simply like to say I likewise have no additional speakers.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

We strongly support H.R. 4545, championed by our colleague from Lakewood, California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez). This authorization will authorize Federal financial assistance for a unique water reuse and conservation project in the Los Angeles area. The project will demonstrate that small-scale neighborhood projects can be built to increase local water supplies and reduce urban water pollution.

Projects like this can help residents of southern California increase local water supplies and reduce their dependence on imported water from northern California and the Colorado River.

This is an innovative project and a good bill that deserves our support. Again, I want to congratulate my friend, Linda Sanchez, for her hard work on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would now yield as much time as she would consume to the gentlewoman who is the sponsor of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. I would yield back my time.